Reading Time: 5 Minutes
What Might Happen if…?
We tend to think of happiness as if it were a feeling, mood, or state of satisfaction: a state of mind. But might it be wiser to conceive of happiness as a process?
The idea is not new: Aristotle saw things this way in 330 BC. He described a way of being toward which all of us have reason to strive, and he conceived of it as a form activity rather than as a mental state. Aristotle called this activity energeia. To our ears the Greek term suggests energy, but it also denotes activity, being at work, or creating something.
What might happen if happiness and well-being were understood as something people enact, develop, and sustain through patterns of activity rather than a pleasant psychological state that one can possess?
Waiting to Feel Better
Emotional reactions have the potential to preoccupy us and, in so doing, prevent us from initiating the right kind of activity. Moods can similarly preclude occupying the mind with intentions and energy necessary to initiate and sustain goal directed behavior. Insofar as emotional reactions do nothing to modify the adverse conditions to which the mind is exposed, they perpetuate the reality-based situation to which the mind is reacting. Reactivity can to this extent be self-reinforcing. The mind that emotionally reacts but passively waits for conditions to change to feel positive may find itself waiting a very long time.
The mind engaged in activity is less inclined to react negatively to conditions, even when activity is directed towards changing such conditions. Reactions don’t disappear in the context of the right kind of activity, but they receive less attention.
Severe Mental Distress
While re-defining happiness could benefit almost everyone, it can be especially helpful to those whose mental suffering is particularly severe. When people with major mood disturbance monitor their activity, identify those activities they find most meaningful or rewarding, and gradually increase their engagement in those activities, their mood disturbances frequently remit.1
Our Attitude Towards Suffering
Seeing activity (rather than a mental state) as our goal fundamentally changes our attitude towards suffering.
We shouldn’t need to be reminded that suffering doesn’t preclude happiness. A devoted parent may endure hardship and sacrifice. A scientist may struggle through years of failure. A public servant may face criticism and setbacks. The objectives of the parent, scientist, or public servant depend on how they act, and not on maintaining a constant positive emotional state. They may suffer, yet we don’t assume that they are “unhappy”.
Our intuitive awareness that suffering does not preclude well-being is similarly reflected in those we choose to admire: we think highly of those who flourish in the context of great suffering and adversity and are far less impressed by those who appear to be happy due to having stumbled upon good fortune. We reserve the highest esteem not for those who lead lives entirely devoid of suffering but for those who remain steadfast in their pursuit of worthy goals despite the persistence of (sometimes great) suffering.
So, we should require no convincing when it comes to the kind of life we hold in the highest esteem, as our intuitions already suggest that what we most value is not the achievement of a positive mental state but rather a life characterized by favorable activity.2
Doing Things
Feelings tend to take a back seat when we engage in activity. The right activity seeks to realize an aspiration by mobilizing engagement, skills, and decision-making – domains over which we can exercise some power and control. Desirable mental states, on the other hand, tend to be fleeting and often prove elusive.
Activity that addresses a problem develops our capacities. Skills are cultivated when activity is regular and intentional. Whereas emotional states come and go and tend to do little in the way of growth, skills expand our capacities and confer enduring value. Activity can maintain something that is beneficial or produce something new, whereas mental states tend to disappear without a trace.
Ironically, having activity as our objective – rather than a feeling, mood, or state of satisfaction – creates conditions wherein positive mental states are more likely to ensue. When the mind is deeply engaged in activity, concerns about how one is feeling don’t arise, yet the mental states that accompany activity are very often positive.
If one seeks a desirable mental state, one might try pursuing the right activity. If we engage in the right activity in the right way, emotional states implied by the concept of “happiness” may very well ensue. Conversely, focusing our intentions and energy on “feeling happy” – or acquiring something that is expected to produce enduring happiness – is far less likely to prove fruitful.3
Creating Reasons to Be Happy
While the pursuit of positive mental states inclines one towards seeking pleasure, the mind engaged in activity entails aspiration.
Asking, “How can I live in a way that fully realizes what is best?” – rather than “How can I feel better?” – focuses the mind on things that may be more deserving of attention than a feeling or mood state. Emotions are fleeting, mood states often temporary, and the objects from which we derive pleasure soon lose their luster. Aspirations can endure and culminate in activity that can change reality in favorable ways.
One might say that the aim of the right kind of activity is to provide us with reasons to be happy, whereas the pursuit of happiness as a mental state may reflect indifference to the reality-based situation to which one is exposed. The pursuit of pleasure might lead us to feel good temporarily, but it probably won’t change the conditions to which we are subject. It’s not at all clear, for example, that “feeling good” is a worthy objective in the setting of numerous global emergencies.
Whereas the right kind of activity adapts us to reality, the pursuit of positive mental states may incline us to ignore it.
Feeling Good versus Pursuing What is Good
Circumstances that affect us as individuals tend to affect the people around us. Addressing adverse conditions that affect everyone requires engagement with others (i.e., cooperation), whereas the pursuit of pleasure can incline the individual toward self-absorption. When the world surrounding us is deteriorating, valuing positive mood states (such as pleasure) above all else may diminish our willingness to engage with circumstances that are unpleasant but necessary.
The efforts necessary to change conditions that cause suffering (or that threaten to cause future suffering) may involve frustration, sacrifice, anxiety, or discomfort. If avoidance of negative mental states becomes our primary objective, we may become less willing to undertake efforts necessary not only to flourish but to sustain our very survival.
Therein lies the tension between the pursuit of feeling good and the pursuit of what is good. A life organized around feeling good can become increasingly insulated from the conditions of the world, whereas a life organized around the pursuit of what is good remains responsive to it. Sometimes the most beneficial thing to do is precisely the thing that makes us feel uncomfortable, at least for a while.
Pleasure is intrinsically local: it concerns how I feel. If maximizing positive subjective states becomes the governing principle, it can promote withdrawal from circumstances that are unpleasant but demand attention—especially when addressing those circumstances requires effort, sacrifice, or tolerating distress.4
Right Activity
One might call efforts that conform to a process-oriented approach to happiness “right activity”. While the precise nature of activity regarded as “right” is necessarily context dependent and will vary enormously between individuals and cultures, it may be possible to identify some of its essential attributes. At a minimum, right activity would seem to be that which:
- Serves a worthwhile end (i.e., is purposeful).
- Corresponds well to the circumstances one finds oneself in.
- Is not inconsistent with meeting the survival needs of oneself and those for whom one is responsible.
- Contributes to individual or collective well-being.
- Cultivates – through repeated engagement in – qualities, dispositions, and habits that enable one to live well.
To Follow: What is Right Activity, Exactly?
NOTES:
Inspirations:
Volf, M., Croasmun, M., & McAnnally-Linz, R. (2023). Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most. The Open Field.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999).
References:
1. Cuijpers, P., Ciharova, M., Tong, L., Liu, Y., Sprenger, A. A., Miguel, C., Karyotaki, E., & Harrer, M. (2026). Behavioral activation for depression: A comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 128, 102783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2026.102783
2. In case you still need convincing, there is evidence that is consistent with the validity of our intuitions in this regard. A form of treatment called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) explicitly shifts attention away from trying to manufacture internal states. Its central concept is psychological flexibility, and emphasizes that one can be anxious, sad, frightened, disappointed or in pain and nevertheless do what matters.
Macri, J. A., & Rogge, R. D. (2024). Examining domains of psychological flexibility and inflexibility as treatment mechanisms in acceptance and commitment therapy: A comprehensive systematic and meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 110, 102432. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38615492/
This extensive review found that interventions based on these principles increased psychological flexibility—including committed action and contact with personal values—and reduced psychological inflexibility. Changes in these processes were significantly associated with reductions in psychological distress.
3. The pursuit of happiness as a mental state may interfere with happiness, because monitoring whether one is happy can turn attention away from the activities through which flourishing occurs.
Sweeny, K., Medina Huerta, J., Hawes, J., & Susoeff, S. (2026). Just keep flowing: A meta-analysis on the relationship between flow and well-being. Emotion, 26(6), 1323–1335. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001657
4. Pleasure itself isn’t necessarily opposed to engagement or meaning. Friendship, love, play, aesthetic experience, humor, and many forms of accomplishment are pleasurable precisely because they connect us to the world and to other people. The problem is not pleasure (nor valuing pleasure) but elevation of one’s immediate subjective state into the ultimate criterion of value.
